To My Friend Kevin

My first time crying over professional sports came when the Minnesota Timberwolves lost to the Los Angeles Lakers in the 2004 Western Conference Finals. I was 9. I remember not being able to comprehend why God would allow the Timberwolves to lose, especially to the notoriously obnoxious Lakers. It was my first NBA season that I remember being totally emotionally invested in, and Kevin Garnett was by far my favorite player. I loved him because he genuinely seemed to care about basketball more than anyone else on the court. I wanted to care about basketball as much as Garnett did. I wanted to care about anything as much as Garnett cared about basketball.

Kevin Garnett is now retired. He was drafted in 1995 when I was one year old. Garnett has literally been in the league since I can remember. And all I can say is thank you. Thank you for your passion and introducing me to a love for a game that has truly been fundamental to my life. Thank you for showing me how much joy can be found in putting a ball through a net. Thank you for winning a ring in Boston.

Recently I read Jonathan Abrams latest book, Boys Among Men (highly recommended), and he dedicates a whole chapter to the fledgling era of Garnett’s career. Reading the anecdotes about his childhood was a fitting way to come full circle in my own quasi-relationship with Garnett. Several comments noting his unparalleled tenacity invoked a nostalgic adoration of his work ethic and spry desire to pursue that same intensity for which he was applauded.

In many ways Garnett showed me how athletics can be used to transcend the surface and connect people on a deeper level. In what other platform would a 9-year-old white kid from the suburbs feel firmly attached and concerned for the well being of a single 7-foot black man across the country. Garnett taught me how to care about something bigger than myself.

A subsection of media protests athletes allowing their personalities to become bigger than what they do on the court or field. They believe sports should stay what they are on the exterior and simply provide us the mind-numbing entrancement of competition. I am firmly rooted, however, on the opposite end. Athletes have a unique position to relate to a cross-generational audience. The simplicity of sports and the inherent desire to be a fan allows someone like Kevin Garnett to say something and someone like 9-year-old Zach Chitwood will listen attentively. That is beyond unique.

This is to say that Kevin Garnett will be missed just as much for who he was as for what he did. I have been particularly fond of these past few Wolves seasons because Garnett has transitioned into embracing the mentor position. And he has performed this new role as passionately and joyfully as when he was an MVP caliber player. His zealous nature carries as much weight for his legacy, and appropriately should, as anything he did on the basketball floor.

No player, new or former, will be as crucial and as memorable as Garnett was for me. With his retirement, we both enter into a new relationship with basketball. I now actively and faithfully watch Karl Anthony-Towns, and I pray that maybe a 9 year-old kid in south Charlotte might be watching him with the same youthful vigor that I once watched Garnett with. I pray that some kid will finish watching Towns and immediately run outside to shoot for hours upon hours, falling in love with the beautiful blessing that is the game of basketball. Watching Towns and Garnett share the court this past season was an amusing exercise. The two competing side by side represented a symbolic changing of the guard and a picturesque ending for Garnett.

In witnessing the end of his career, reflecting on the beginning has a new light. It’s funny what things from childhood begin to cement themselves over the years. The memories become more and more scarce. To this day, however, I vividly remember a variety of things about Garnett:

I remember wearing my blue Garnett jersey to the first NBA game I ever went to: a hazy mid-November bout between the Timberwolves and the Charlotte Bobcats (RIP).

I remember he was virtually unstoppable in NBA Live 2005.

I remember he murdered the Kings.

I remember he shit-talked everyone.

I remember anything is possible.

To this day, I will defend that Garnett was better in his peak than Duncan. I will defend that no one loves basketball more than Kevin Garnett. I will defend that he is the most influential Minnesota athlete ever. I will defend that he should have won the 2008 MVP.

For the first time I understand how it feels to go through a full cycle with a professional athlete’s career — from the valleys, to the peaks, to the inevitable battle with father time. I have seen the full circle. I even better understand the older veterans on Sports Center defending their generations to the death, saying the new age wouldn’t stand a chance in their time. I get it because no one will influence the game with the same combination of poise, power, and performance as Kevin Garnett did. He was a basketball anomaly. He was by no means perfect, which in a way made him even more likable. He wasn’t polished. He crossed the line. He didn’t care. More than anything else, Garnett showed me the transcendental nature that competing can have. He showed me what it actually meant to truly care about something.

He cared about basketball the way a 9-year old cares.